Stories of
American Heroes -
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Day of Infamy

When
America
Needed Heroes

When the morning sun broke across
Diamond Head on December 7, 1941, it sparkled across the smooth waters of
Pearl Harbor to reveal fully half of the entire United States Navy's
Pacific Fleet. Scattered around Ford Island, and resting peacefully at
anchor, were nearly 150 ships of the Navy and Coast Guard, most of which
subsequently sustained damage in the ensuing attack. Eighteen vessels were
sunk or severely damaged beneath two waves of Japanese Zeroes and torpedo
bombers, including all eight of the fleet's huge battleships, 3 light
cruisers, and 3 destroyers. Of the more than 2,400 Americans killed
during the two-hour attack 1,177 were lost aboard the USS Arizona.
It was the most disastrous day in the history of the United States Navy,
truly A Day of Infamy. In one
swift stroke the Japanese Imperial Navy and Air Force rendered the
American Navy virtually impotent to defend the vast Pacific.

Almost listed as a historical
footnote to the Navy's losses at Pearl Harbor is the devastation wreaked
upon the United States Army Air Forces. The image of a burning P-40
fighter on an airfield pales next to the drama of the sinking USS
Arizona or the over-turned hull of the USS Utah.
Perceptions aside, the
overall result to any American hope of mounting a Pacific defense was the
same. On the same morning that the Japanese destroyed the US Navy's
Pacific Fleet, it also decimated the ability of the Army's Air Force to
rise to the challenge of the new war.

Five air stations were scattered
across the island of Oahu, including the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay
and the smaller Marine Air Station at Ewa. The bulk of the American
Army's air presence in the Pacific was located on three airstrips: Wheeler Field near Schofield
Barracks in the center of the island, Hickam Field between
Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, and the new Bellows Field on the island's
southeast coast line. In all, these five fields were home to some 400
aircraft on the morning of December 7, 1941. All were priority targets
for Japanese Commander Mitsuo Fuchida's first wave of 183 fighter planes
and torpedo bombers.

When the first wave approached the
north end of the island from their carriers just 200 miles away, they
split up to attack in all directions. One flight peeled off towards
the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, home to the three squadrons of Navy
Patrol Wing One. Each squadron consisted of twelve new, twin-engine,
PBY Catalina flying boats. All but three of them were parked neatly near
their hangers, or floating peacefully in the bay. It was here, at 7:48
a.m, that
the first shots were fired on that Day of Infamy.
Within minutes twenty-six PBYs were destroyed where they sat. Six more
were severely damaged. Only the three planes that were out on an
early morning
patrol survived the attack.

Six Zeroes from the enemy flight that
skirted the west coastline to attack Pearl Harbor peeled off as
they passed the Marine Air Station at Ewa to strafe the fields. Of
forty-eight American aircraft based there, thirty-three were
destroyed or damaged. Before the first bombs fell on American
ships around Ford Island, Naval and Marine Corps aviation in the Pacific
had been reduced by half.

The damage was even worse for the
Army Air Forces.

The threat of sabotage
was far greater than the threat of attack at Pearl Harbor late in 1941.
To minimize this risk the Army Air Force Commander Lieutenant
General Walter C. Short had ordered his airplanes to be neatly parked in
highly visible rows, away from the hangers. At 7:51 a.m. Japanese
aircraft descended on Wheeler Field and, four minutes later, other enemy
aircraft simultaneously launched the assault on Pearl Harbor and nearby
Hickam Field.

Only a few American
pilots like Lieutenant Philip Rasmussen who flew into combat in his
pajamas, or Lieutenant George Welch who shot down four enemy airplanes
that day, managed to get their fighters off the ground. The bulk
of the United States Army Air Force was destroyed on the ground.
By the time the second wave of Fuchida's attack force arrived over Oahu,
perhaps as many as 20 American airplanes had risen to the defense.
It was a feeble attempt to preserve what remained. When the sun
set over the Hawaiian Islands on December 7, 1941, of nearly 230 Army
aircraft assigned to duty in the Pacific, 64 were destroyed and 82 were
damaged. More than 500 airmen were either killed or wounded.

If
the losses suffered by the Army Air Forces at Pearl Harbor were overshadowed
by the devastating losses of the U.S. Navy in the reports that spread across
the mainland in the hours that followed, it is understandable.
Those initial reports sparked shock, horror and rage when special editions of
the newspapers hit the streets in the afternoon. Outrage and anger however, quickly turned
into fear and frustration. Before the normal Monday morning newspapers
could hit the streets eighteen hours later, the news became even worse.

The United States was not a super power in 1941; its fledgling
Army ranked only 17th in the entire world. The U.S. Navy had only seven
big aircraft carriers, three of them assigned to the Pacific Fleet which lay
in burning ruin before noon on December 7. Fortunately, all three
aircraft carriers had been away from Pearl Harbor on the morning of the attack and
were spared destruction. This was the only ray of hope in a day
otherwise filled with nothing but bad news--fearsome news that would only
continue to mount.

The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga
was in San Diego when the bombs fell over Pearl Harbor. The USS
Lexington and the USS Enterprise were elsewhere in the Pacific, on
separate missions from Pearl Harbor to deliver Marine Corps aircraft to the
isolated American outposts on Midway and Wake Islands. Both carriers and
their escort ships were well south of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's
carrier fleet when it turned homeward shortly before noon. The islands
to which the carriers were delivering those aircraft however, were not outside
the range of attack.

Falling
Like Dominoes

When the attack began at Pearl Harbor it
was 4 a.m. of December 8 at the isolated American outpost of Guam on the other
side of the International Date Line. Less than five hours later the
morning sun had risen on the strategic island that was home to 150 Marines and
a few assorted Naval personnel. With the sunshine came waves of aircraft
from the Japanese 18th Naval Air Unit based on Saipan. The badly
outnumbered Americans and their small contingent of local Chamorro from the
Guam Militia were nearly helpless. The island had no artillery, only a
few machine guns, and virtually no shelter to escape the torrent of bombs that
followed. Though the defenders held throughout the day, and even through
the following day of continued bombardment, there was no doubt that Guam was
on the verge of collapse.

One hour east of Guam was Wake Island (it is actually three small islands), an
isolated American outpost of strategic importance to the American presence in
the Pacific. Prior to December 7 it was the only island in the region
not under Japanese rule and
control. Major James P. S. Devereux commanded 400 Marines to defend the position that consisted of a newly constructed air field and a few
bunkers.

Four days earlier the carrier Enterprise had
sailed in close enough to dispatch twelve F4F Wildcats under the command of
Major Paul Putnam in order to fly patrols from the new airfield. Then the big
aircraft carrier had
turned for home.

At 8 a.m. on December 7 the Enterprise was only
200 miles west of her home port and launched Scouting Squadron 6 to
land at Ewa Airfield. These pilots flew unsuspecting into a maelstrom that
was Pearl Harbor while the bombardment was still in progress, and engaged enemy
aircraft in the final stages of the attack.

It was 6:00 a.m. on December 8 at Wake
Island when the first bombs fell over Pearl Harbor, and Major Devereaux
received word of the attack with his morning coffee. While he alerted his
small shore defenses, Major Putnam and three Marine pilots began immediate patrols
over the north side of the atoll. A rain squall darkened skies to the
south. It was nearing noon when 36 twin-engine Japanese bombers slipped
through the storm to surprise Wake's defenders. The four airborne
American pilots returned to meet the enemy in the air, but not before the
Japanese destroyed seven of the twelve Wild Cats on the ground and damaged an
eighth. The heavy bombardment further destroyed most of the aviation
fuel and spare parts needed for the Marine flying squadron that was now reduced to but
four aircraft.

Despite the damage, the 400 intrepid
Leatherneck riflemen held on, determined to rebuff the enemy bombardment.
Unknown to them at the time, even as the first bombs rained down on Wake
Island, a large Japanese landing force was departing from Kwajalien to finish
the job. They would arrive within three days.

Further west it was daybreak along the
China coast. With dawn the Japanese continued their onslaught including attacks
at Peking, against a small Marine guard unit in Chinwangtao near Tientsin, at the port at
Singapore, and elsewhere throughout the region. The time was now 9:00 a.m. in
Tokyo, nearly midnight in Washington, D.C., and it was still early afternoon at Pearl
Harbor. The Day of Infamy was yet young, with even more bad news to
follow. Before evening shadows could fall over Oahu to hide what
wreckage was not illuminated by the still burning fires from the early morning
raid, far to the west additional attacks would continue. One of them,
due its extreme damage to what was left of American military power in the
Pacific, would become known as:

MacArthur's
"Pearl Harbor"

Word of the Pearl Harbor attack reached
the Philippine Islands by commercial radio shortly after 3:00 a.m. (local time) on the morning of
December 8. Due the time zones and the International Date Line, this
announcement arrived while the second wave of enemy planes were returning to
the aircraft carriers from their deadly mission at Oahu. Within half-an-hour the
American radar station at Iba Field on the west coast of Luzon plotted a
formation of airplanes approaching Corregidor at the mouth of Manila Bay from 75, miles off-shore. Several American P40 fighters were airborne by
4:00 a.m. and flying to intercept. Blips on the radar screen at Iba
showed the two forces engaging, though in fact the American pilots never saw
the approaching force. Flying at an altitude of more than 20,000 feet, the Japanese bombers
passed above the lower American fighters in the pre-dawn darkness.

The 7,000 Philippine Islands are located
5,000 miles from Hawaii but only 1,800 miles from Tokyo. Under American
control since the Spanish-American War, in 1941 the Philippines comprised the
westernmost American outpost and stood as the last natural barrier between
Japan and the rich resources of East and Southeast Asia.

Formosa, less then 600 miles to the
north, had been under Japanese rule since 1895. By 1941 nearly all other
surrounding islands were under Japanese rule and control and in November the Japanese 11th Air Fleet moved 300 aircraft to Formosa.
They immediately began intensive training for night bombing missions. The
intent was clear; the Japanese were preparing to launch bombing raids on the
Philippine Islands.

Most of the 17 million people
scattered through the Philippines lived on one of the 11 largest
islands, including the big island of Luzon. Luzon was home to
both the capitol city of Manila and the headquarters of General Douglas
MacArthur. In 1941 MacArthur's ground defenses numbered fewer than
25,000 trained soldiers, more than half of which were Philippine
regulars or scouts. An irregular force of 100,000 reserve militia
was in training, but on December 8, 1941, most were ill-equipped and
unprepared for combat.

American naval presence in the
south Pacific was small, consisting primarily of the heavy cruiser USS
Houston, fewer than a dozen light cruisers, and two dozen
submarines. The real defense of the region had been delegated to the
Far East American Air Force, based primarily on Luzon and on the southern
island of Mindanao. Though airfields were scattered across Luzon,
most of MacArthur's FEAAF was based around Manila. This force
consisted of nearly 100 P-40 and P-35 fighters, with squadrons consisting
of a eighteen fighters each at Iba, Clark, and Nichols
Fields. Also based at Clark Field were nineteen of the FEAAF's
thirty-five new Boeing B-17 bombers. The remaining sixteen were
based 500 miles south, at
Del Monte on the Island of Mindanao .

The largest 4-engine bombing squadron
in the world, these B-17s were capable of delivering destruction to Japanese
positions not only on the surrounding islands, but as far away as
heavily fortified Formosa. Realizing that these bombers posed
America's only viable means of retaliation, Japanese war planners had
intended to strike Luzon nearly simultaneously with the attack at Pearl
Harbor. The attack against the FEAAF had been planned for 2:00 a.m. local time.
That plan was delayed nearly 12
hours by a heavy fog that shut down flights out of Formosa.

At 9:30 a.m. American radar picked
up enemy aircraft heading south over Lingayen Gulf, apparently destined
for Manila. Fighters from Clark and Nichols Fields were dispatched
to repel the invaders, and eighteen operational B-17s were scrambled at
Clark Field so as not to leave them unprotected on the ground.
Instead of continuing towards Manila however, the enemy airplanes turned inland
to bomb ground forces at Baguio and Tarlac, as well as the small
airfield at Cabantuan. American fighters failed to make
contact and shortly before noon both these and the airborne B-17s were
running low on fuel and returning to their respective fields.

An American war plan code named Rainbow
Five called for the B-17 pilots to refuel, arm with 100 and 300-pound bombs,
and launch an immediate retaliatory strike against Japanese airfields on
Formosa. What the pilots or ground crews did not realize as they
bent to the task of loading bombs and fuel on the grounded and now vulnerable Flying
Fortresses was that at that very moment, a flight of 84 Zeroes was
inbound. They were escorts for more than 100 Japanese bombers that had left
Formosa (Tainan) as quickly as the fog lifted.

The radar station at Iba Field
picked up the incoming enemy aircraft and flashed a warning to both Del
Monte and Clark Fields. On the island of Mindanao fighters were
scrambled to head north and defend Clark Field. There, but another
twist of bad luck, the warning had
gone unnoticed. The radio-operator was away from his headset...at
lunch.

Minutes later more than 100 Zeroes and Mitsubishis peeled
off to attack Iba Field, where the eighteen P-40s of the 3rd Pursuit Squadron
were refueling on the ground. In moments, sixteen of them were
destroyed where they sat. Other enemy planes continued towards
Clark Field only 40 miles further inland.

At Clark Field one B-17 was still
airborne and circling the airfield amid a flurry of activity
below. On the ground pilots and crew joked and laughed while they bent to their tasks. Over commercial radio they could hear a
commentator announcing that Clark Field was under attack. To the
contrary, the pilots knew, they were preparing to launch an attack of their
own. Three B-17s outfitted with cameras for a reconnaissance
flight over Formosa were taxiing into position, while the remaining
bombers were being loaded for "Payback".

When the skies
were suddenly filled with aircraft, someone looked up and gleefully
announced, "Here comes the Navy!" Another puzzled soldier glanced
upward and asked, "Why are they dropping tinfoil?" Then
the air raid sirens sounded, and MacArthur's Little Pearl Harbor was
under way.

The
three B-17s that had been preparing for takeoff exploded where they sat, followed by
explosion after explosion. Enemy aircraft swooped down in two waves,
bombing and strafing everything they could see. Men died,
buildings burst into flames, and mighty B-17s exploded all around.
Only four P-40 fighters managed to take off and enter the fray.
The one-hour assault left little to be salvaged from Army Air Force in
the Far East. The only Flying Fortress to survive was the
one that had been in the air; all eighteen others were destroyed on the ground.
Also destroyed were a dozen P-35 and twenty P-40 fighters.
American air power in the South Pacific had been reduced to half.

Back
in Hawaii it was shortly after dinner time, December 7, 1941.
Fires still burned in the harbor, exploding munitions still rocked the
airfields, and efforts were still under way to find survivors. In
Washington, D.C. it wasn't yet midnight.

President Roosevelt had
already penned the first draft of the speech he planned to deliver the
following morning to the United States Congress. As reports
continued to reach the Capitol of each new attack, with sorrow and
disgust he was forced to revise his account to Congress.

Midway

The Japanese plan of attack at
Pearl Harbor had called for three waves of invading aircraft. The
damage inflicted by the first two waves far exceeded any victory Admiral
Yamamoto or Commander Fuchida could
have hoped for, but the absence of all three American aircraft carriers
had provided the one disappointment. Due their absence, the third
assault was cancelled and upon the return of the pilots from the second
wave, the Imperial Fleet made haste to return home. Japan lay
4,000 miles west, far beyond the reach of any American retaliatory
strike, but the unknown whereabouts of the American carrier task forces
posed potential dangers for the returning fleet.

One of those absent American
carriers was the USS Lexington. At that moment she was en route
to the small islands of Midway to deliver a Marine air squadron. It was a
mission similar to the one just completed at Wake Island by the USS
Enterprise. Escorting the Lexington were three heavy
cruisers (Chicago, Portland, and Astoria) and four light
cruisers (Mahan, Drayton, Lamson, and Flusser). When
news of the attack on Oahu reached the Lexington the big carrier
was 425 miles southeast of Midway, and hoping to reach the 400-mile range
limit from which it could launch the 18 planes of Marine Scouting Bombing
Squadron 231 for the last leg of their trek to their new base.
Instead, the Lexington upon learning of the attack, launched
scout planes to seek out the Japanese fleet and turned south to join
the Enterprise.

Meanwhile far to the north, Admiral
Yamamoto was returning home unmolested. When darkness settled on
that Day of Infamy, he was within striking range of Midway and
dispatched some of his ships to launch one final attack. It was
after 9 p.m. on the night of December 7 that his destroyers were close
enough to the isolated outpost at the far west end of the Hawaiian
archipelago, to allow the defending Marines to rake their decks with
machineguns. The Japanese commenced a half-hour naval bombardment,
killing four Marines and wounding nineteen.

On
Midway's Sand Island a large Japanese shell struck and penetrated the
air vent of the main communications center. Commanded by
twenty-six year old Marine First Lieutenant George Cannon, the resulting
explosion in the confined concrete bunker was deadly. Nearly deaf
and bleeding from numerous wounds, Lieutenant Cannon refused to be
evacuated and remained throughout continued shelling to organize the
evacuation of other wounded. When the
Japanese guns ceased fire and the big ships returned to join their fleet
for the trek home, Lieutenant Cannon finally allowed his broken body to
be evacuated to the aid station.

It was too late, his blood loss had
been too
extreme to spare his life. He became the first Marine of World War
II to earn the Medal of Honor. Back at Pearl Harbor the
clock struck midnight...

The Day of Infamy had finally
ended!

Six hours after
the attack at Midway,

President Roosevelt
addressed the Nation.

(From Start
to Finish--Fewer than 24 Hours had elapsed.)

The
First 24 Hours

Manila

Tokyo

Guam

Wake

Midway

Hawaii

California

DC

Pearl
Harbor Attacked

2:00
AM

3:00
AM

4:00
AM

6:00
AM

7:00
AM

8:00
AM

10:00
AM

1:00
PM

Guam
Attacked

7:00
AM

8:00
AM

9:00
AM

11:00
AM

12:00
PM

1:00
PM

3:00
PM

6:00
PM

Wake Island
Attacked

8:00
AM

9:00
AM

10:00
AM

Noon

1:00
PM

2:00
PM

4:00
PM

7:00
PM

Japanese
attack at Peking, Hong Kong, Singapore and throughout the region.

Clark Field
Bombed

12:00
PM

1:00
PM

2:00
PM

4:00
PM

5:00
PM

6:00
PM

8:00
PM

11:00
PM

Midway
Attacked

4:30
PM

5:30
PM

6:30
PM

8:30
PM

9:30
PM

10:30
PM

12:30
AM

3:30
AM

F.D.R. Infamy
Speech

1:30
AM

2:30
AM

3:30
AM

5:30
AM

6:30
AM

7:30
AM

9:30
AM

12:30
PM

December 9

December 7

December 8

Yesterday,
Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of
America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
of the Empire of Japan.

Yesterday,
the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

No
matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion,
the American people in their righteous might will win through to
absolute victory.

The morning sun was rising in Hawaii when
President Roosevelt delivered his now-famous December 8 speech to the nation
at 12:30 p.m. (Washington, D.C. time). By 4:30 p.m. when the United States
Senate approved that declaration of war against Japan, dawn was breaking
over the Philippines. There, as elsewhere, the news continued to become worse.
With the morning sun the Japanese launched attacks against Nichols Field and there
were reports of enemy troops landing at Vigan. The bombardment continued
against American forces at Guam and Wake Islands. So invincible seemed
the Japanese onslaught there were even fears back home of potential attacks on the shores of
America's West Coast.

In the absence of any good news,
Americans were forced to find comfort in the stories of heroism and valor that
streamed in from the Pacific:

The Black Mess Steward who picked up a
machinegun to shoot back,

The chaplain who coined the phrase "Praise
the Lord and pass the ammunition" aboard the USS New Orleans,

The few pilots who had managed to get into the air at Pearl and shoot down
nine enemy airplanes.

Sixteen men earned Medals of Honor on that Day of
Infamy. Eleven of them were dead. In those dark hours there was no
shortage of tales of heroic action. The people of a ravaged nation needed
more however,...they needed a ray of hope...they needed some good news to reassure them that
somehow they would survive and prevail.

Sadly, the news only became WORSE!

On the morning of December 10 more than
6,000 Japanese Rikusentai (marines) landed on the island of Guam. The
150 American Marines and 600 Navy defenders were quickly forced to
surrender. It was the first American soil to fall into the hands of the
Japanese.

On that same morning an enemy convoy was
spotted advancing on the Philippines. Five of the remaining B-17s of the
Far East Air Force conducted the first bombing raid of World War II, attacking
the convoy unmolested and scoring a few hits. It wasn't enough however,
to dent the invincible armada.

Six B-17s attempted bombing missions on
Formosa, including one piloted by Captain Collin Kelly, Jr. Captain
Kelly's mission was a solo strike without fighter escorts, since there were only
twenty-two P-40 fighters remaining in combat condition.

Flying solo en route to Formosa, Kelly
noted a large enemy landing party proceeding towards Aparri on the north coast
of Luzon. He requested permission to drop his three 600-pound bombs on
the enemy formation and was told to stand by. After a second request
went unanswered, on his own initiative, he led his crew in three passes to
attack what appeared to be a battleship. His ordnance expended, he was
returning to Clark Field when enemy fighters destroyed his Flying Fortress.
With one rear gunner dead and the cockpit awash in flame, Kelly ordered his
crew to bail out while he remained at the controls. When the five men
had jumped they turned back to see their bomber explode. Captain Kelly still
at the controls.

Colin Kelly's heroism became one more of
those badly needed stories of valor, the legend of a pilot who had struck
the first real blow against the Japanese by sinking the big battleship Haruna.
At home the story was embellished, as legends often are, especially when there
is a desperate need for heroes. In time the tale had Captain Kelly diving his doomed B-17 into the warship
before he died and earning the Medal of Honor. Such inspiration was needed
by a battered nation
but it was just legend.

Captain Kelly certainly sank an enemy
warship with his bombs but it was not the battleship Haruna. His
B-17 was not lost in the bombardment but exploded on the return flight, wreckage landing only 5 miles from Clark Field.
Kelly did not
receive the Medal of Honor, though he was posthumously awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross for his valiant efforts. The fallacy of the legend aside, Captain
Collin Kelly's heroism can not be diminished by the true facts of that
day. Alone, he led his bomber in a courageous attack on a superior enemy
force, then stayed at the controls of his damaged airplane on its flight home
to sacrifice his life while his crew jumped to safety.

It is true that every legend is rooted in
fact, even if the facts don't rise to the level of the legend. On
December eleventh the tables were turned. On that day the facts became
more than legend could ever dream, and the myth of Japanese invincibility crumbled
for the first time.

Wake
Island

The Japanese returned to Wake Island on
the morning of December 9, confident the battered Marine forces there were
near destruction. Only four Marine fighters remained of Major Paul
Putnam's Fighting Squadron 211 to meet them but they were enough, flaming one
enemy bomber. Marine anti-aircraft gunners dropped a second before the
enemy retreated.

With a landing party of Japanese marines steaming in from
Kwajalien, the Jap bombers returned again on the morning of December 10.
Marine Captain Henry Elrod, of Putnam's 4-plane air force, found himself vastly
outnumbered and in a vicious dogfight over the island. Determined to
prevail he pressed onward, shooting down two bombers of the 26-plane attack force.
Meanwhile, the ships of the Rikusentai landing force moved ever nearer,
arriving at last off the shoreline near midnight.

The enemy ships waited until dawn to
approach further,
unleashing their big guns on the small island that had already been nearly
bombed into desolation. Major Devereux ordered his Marines to hold their
fire. The enemy mistook the lack of resistance as the sign of a quick and
easy victory. Enticed to move in closer, the warships and transports
were great targets when at last
Devereux unleashed his costal guns. The light cruiser Yubari took
three big hits before it retreated with black smoke trailing. Three more
enemy vessels took similar damage. In addition the destroyer Hayate was sunk
by Wake's 5-inch guns. Almost before it had begun, the amphibious assault was
aborted.

It would be the only time of the entire war that a landing
party from either side was successfully repelled. The amazing feat of
determination and resistance was
accomplished by a small but valiant group of Americans, 400 Marines
and their 4-plane air force.

Even as the enemy ships withdrew the
four Marine pilots pressed their own assault. Captain Elrod dropped a load of bombs
directly on the deck of the destroyer Kisaragi, sending it to the bottom
of the ocean with 500 enemy soldiers. His fellow pilots damaged
two additional enemy ships, forcing the Japanese forces into a full
retreat. Such victory aside, the battle damage to Wake Island was heavy and by
nightfall Major Putnam commanded what was now only a two-plane air force.

The fate of Wake Island was sealed
however. Isolated and vastly outnumbered, the 400 Marines could not
survive on guts and determination alone. For two more weeks they
provided America with the first GOOD news in the dark days that followed the
attack at Pearl
Harbor. When commanders at Hawaii radioed Wake Island to inquire what the
Leathernecks might need they defiantly responded: "Send us more Japs!"

The
First Ace

On the morning of December 13 Lieutenant
Boyd Buzz Wagner of the 17th Pursuit Squadron based in the Philippines took
off in his fighter. It was to be a solo mission to recon enemy movements near Aparri at
the north end of Luzon. Fire streaked up at him from two destroyers
accompanying an enemy landing force, and as Lieutenant Wagner dove he found
five Zeros on his tail. His P-40 out-maneuvered the enemy planes, which
soon broke off and headed towards their new field at Aparri. Wagner
followed, shooting down two of them and then strafing the enemy airfield in two runs
of deadly destruction that left at least ten enemy planes burning on the
ground. On his second pass, the remaining Zeros came in from
behind. When the intrepid airman turned towards Clark Field, two of them
followed.

Wagner continued his flight home, the two
enemy aircraft tailing him and jockeying in for the kill. As they zoomed
in to open fire, Wagner throttled back and the Zeros overshot, leaving their quarry
dangerously behind them. In minutes both were falling in flames. Buzz Wagner
had put in a pretty good day, shooting down four enemy planes and destroying
nearly a dozen more on the ground.

Even if every American pilot on Luzon had
possessed the skill and courage of Buzz Wagner, it wouldn't have been
enough. By now only the Army Air Force had only twenty-two P-40s to
defend against nearly 500 Japanese aircraft. On December 16 Lieutenant
Wagner was dispatched to Vigan where the Japanese had established an airfield
to support their troops which were landing across the north end of the
island. Wagner selected Lieutenant Russell Church as his wingman and the
two pilots surprised the Japanese at dawn.

Wagner came in first, dropping six
30-pound bombs across a neat line of 25 enemy airplanes on the strip
below. The enemy responded by quickly filling the sky with deadly
anti-aircraft fire, making any further such attacks sheer suicide. Glancing
off towards his wingman, Wagner saw Church's P-40 take a hit on the nose and
then the entire airplane erupted in flames. He shouted into his radio,
ordered Church to turn back and bail out. Wagner later remembered what
happened next:

"He dipped the nose of his blazing ship
(and) went down like a hellbent fireball...then flattened out right
over the target. I watched while every bomb he carried fell
squarely among the grounded planes...The ship still held its course,
still flaming, and then it suddenly rocked wildly and plunged sideways
to earth...enemy planes were destroyed by his bombs and that meant we
were able to go just that much longer in the Philippines.

"I know that Church knew he was facing
certain death when he decided to remain with his mission. What
Russell Church did at Vigan that day (was) the most courageous thing I
have ever seen in this Pacific war."

The sight of Russell Church's P-40 going
down over Vigan caused something to snap inside the heart and mind of Buzz
Wagner. Despite the hail of fire, he dove on the airstrip again, strafing
everything in sight. Nine enemy planes exploded on the ground and seven
more were damaged. As Wagner made his final pass, one enemy pilot
managed to get airborne and swing in behind him. Again Wagner let the
enemy pursue, pausing until the last moment before gunfire erupted to throttle
back and let the Zero zip past. Rolling over, Wagner came in and claimed
his fifth aerial victory to become the first American Air Force Ace of World
War II.

Both Wagner and Church were awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross for the mission over Vigan, Church
posthumously. Days later Wagner was injured when enemy fire shattered
the windscreen of his P-40, and was sent to Australia. He was promoted to
Lieutenant Colonel, becoming the youngest man of such rank in the Army.
Less than a year later he was lost at home, the victim of a routine flight from
Elgin Field in Florida to Maxwell Field in Alabama.

The day after Buzz Wagner became an ace
the first major withdrawal of American Army Air Force assets commenced.
The few critical and remaining B-17s were flown out to safer quarters at Batchelor Field in Australia. In
the days that followed additional assets departed as Japanese troops continued
to land on Luzon. The news from the war front, despite the tales of
American determination and valor, continued to be all bad.

On Wake Island only two aircraft remained to defend
against increased aerial attacks. The enemy, angered by the defeat of their December
11 landing effort, threw everything they had against the beleaguered
Marines. On December 22 a force of thirty-three dive bombers and a dozen
fighters attacked Wake. Major Putnam's two remaining fighters rose to
the challenge, shooting down two enemy. One American pilot never
returned; the other managed to crash-land back at Wake. With no combat
aircraft remaining every man on the island became a rifleman. All fought
with a vengeance when more than 1,000 enemy soldiers landed the following
day. Among these defenders was Captain Henry Elrod whose valor in the air
and on the ground would earn him the first Medal of Honor awarded to any aviator, in any branch of
service, in World War II. His citation notes:

"Engaging vastly superior forces of
enemy bombers and warships on 9 and 12 December, Capt. Elrod shot down
2 of a flight of 22 hostile planes and, executing repeated bombing and
strafing runs at extremely low altitude and close range, succeeded in
inflicting deadly damage upon a large Japanese vessel, thereby sinking
the first major warship to be destroyed by small caliber bombs
delivered from a fighter-type aircraft. When his plane was disabled by
hostile fire and no other ships were operative, Capt. Elrod assumed
command of 1 flank of the line set up in defiance of the enemy landing
and, conducting a
brilliant defense, enabled his men to hold their positions and repulse
intense hostile fusillades to provide covering fire for unarmed
ammunition carriers. Capturing an automatic weapon during 1 enemy rush
in force, he gave his own firearm to 1 of his men and fought on
vigorously against the Japanese. Responsible in a large measure for
the strength of his sector's gallant resistance, on 23 December, Capt.
Elrod led his men with bold aggressiveness until he fell, mortally
wounded. His superb skill as a pilot, daring leadership and unswerving
devotion to duty distinguished him among the defenders of Wake Island,
and his valiant conduct reflects the highest credit upon himself and
the U.S. Naval Service.
"He gallantly gave his life for his country."

On December 7, 1941, the carefully
crafted war plans of the Japanese armed forces crushed the might of
American Naval and Army air power in the Pacific. In the two weeks that
followed, despite a valiant resistance exhibited at places like Wake
Island, Guam, China and the Philippine Islands, nothing could stop the
swift-moving Nippon war machine. Though ground forces on Luzon continued
to hold on in hopes that reinforcements would arrive, by Christmas
virtually all of the Pacific was under enemy control and the Japanese
Islands themselves were beyond the range of any hope for retaliation.

In that last full week of the year
President Roosevelt held a meeting in his White House office.
Attending was Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, ; General
Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, chief of staff of the Army Air Forces;
Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations; Secretary of War Henry
Stimson; Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Admiral Harold Stark, and the
President's personal advisor Harry Hopkins.

In that top-secret meeting the
President announced that he wanted to strike back at the Japanese as
quickly as possible. He indicated that such a strike needed to be
more than a military victory; it needed to be a moral victory that would
bolster the hopes of the American people. The President went so
far as to identify such a mission as a bombing raid on the Japanese
homeland itself.

It was an impossible request, a
dream of "Payback" by a military force that had been reduced
to half of its pre-Pearl Harbor strength. It called for a mission against a target half-a-world a
way, and insulated by a buffer of enemy-held territory that extended
thousands of miles in all directions.

In the weeks that followed that
meeting, America's highest ranking generals and admirals seldom met without
discussing the President's call for retaliatory strikes. In
the islands of Japan there was no fear of such a strike, for there was no
way it could be accomplished. America had been brought to her
knees, humbled, humiliated, and rendered impotent.

Therein lay
the first major error of Japan's well-laid plan for world
dominion...they underestimated the will and determination of the
American people in time of crisis. Instead, they should have
headed the words spoken by their own commander following his successful
attack on Pearl Harbor:

"I
fearthat we have awakened a sleeping
giant
and filled him with a terrible resolve"